*Directive aimed at controlling rising road accidents
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 8: Concerned over high rate of road accidents and fatalities, the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has directed the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to rectify all the identified black spots on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway 1A as expeditiously as possible so that loss of human lives in tragedies on this main artery of the State is controlled. However, the road safety audits beyond Udhampur could not be taken up till date despite explicit directives from the Ministry because of delay on the part of contractors in engaging the Auditors.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that since National Highways account for a substantial proportion of road accidents and fatalities leading to huge economic losses and irreparable loss of human lives, the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in the month of October last year decided to make concerted efforts towards improvement of road safety in general and on National Highways in particular.
Towards this objective, it was decided that the road accident black spots based on fatality data collected from police reports would be identified and given priority for their removal through permanent and temporary measures.
Accordingly, on the basis of data of fatalities in the year 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 several black spots were identified on the National Highway 1A, which is the main artery connecting twin regions of Kashmir and Jammu and passes through mountainous areas. Though black-spots on Kathua-Jammu and Jammu-Udhampur have already been rectified during the four-laning of the National Highway, such spots beyond Udhampur are yet to be taken up for temporary rectification till their permanent modification during the widening of the National Highway beyond Udhampur.
“As the work on widening of National Highway between Udhampur-Ramban and Ramban-Banihal is yet to be taken up, the Union Ministry has directed the National Highway Authority of India to immediately take up temporary rectification works”, sources said. Such spots are Digdol and Battery Chashma in Ramban district, K-Root to Lethpora in Awantipora and some spots beyond Awantipora up to Srinagar.
According to the official data, Digdol area witnessed 25 fatalities in 2011, 15 in 2012 and 19 in 2014. Similarly, Battery Chashma witnessed 15 fatalities in 2014 alone. The black spot of K-Root to Lethpora in Awantipora witnessed 14 fatalities in 2011, 15 in 2012 and 18 in 2013 while as the black spots beyond Awantipora witnessed 43 fatalities in 2011, 19 in 2012 and 23 in 2013.
Keeping in view this data, the Ministry has asked the NHAI to ensure that temporary rectification works are initiated as early as possible on the ground that leaving such spots un-attended till completion of four-laning work would not be advisable, sources said.
When contacted, Project Director, NHAI, J&K, R P Singh said, “all the black spots on Kathua-Jammu and Jammu-Udhampur stretches have automatically been rectified with the widening of the National Highway”, adding “similarly such spots beyond Udhampur would be removed with the widening of National Highway but in order to ensure that such spots don’t result into tragic road accidents, we will take up temporary measures as directed by the Ministry”.
Meanwhile, the implementation of directives of the Union Ministry regarding road safety audits is taking time because of delay on the part of contractors in engaging auditors.
“The road safety audit of Jammu-Udhampur stretch is being conducted after every three months by Thapar Institute Patiala, which has been selected for the task and on the basis of Auditor’s reports, corrective measures are being taken by the NHAI”, sources said.
However, Auditors for Udhampur-Ramban and Ramban-Banihal and Srinagar stretch are yet to be engaged for conducting road safety audits. “The contractors are required to submit a panel of Auditors to NHAI for selection and exercise in this regard is going on and hopefully within next one or two month the Auditors would be engaged for conducting the safety audits”, the NHAI Project Director said in response to a question.
He informed that the road safety audits would be conducted after every six months and necessary corrective steps would be taken accordingly.
It is pertinent to mention here that road safety audit is aimed at taking up the remedial measures for the identified safety concerns related to the road environment to bring about perceptible improvement in the present high rate of accidents on the highways.
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